Cedar Hill Serenity

STEVE GRANTCourant Staff Writer

For most people, Cedar Hill Cemetery in Hartford won't jump to mind when thoughts turn to an afternoon outdoors.

Unless you travel Fairfield Avenue regularly, you might not even know it exists. And should you know it is there, you probably don't know visitors are welcome and that it is both an oasis of green well worth exploring and a window into Hartford's history.

Its 270 acres of rolling terrain are planted with native and exotic tree and shrub species from throughout the world, including some that are the biggest known specimens of their kind in New England.

Walk among them along the winding blacktopped roads, and you pass hundreds of often elaborate monuments and gravestones of some of the most famous figures in Hartford history - among them J. P. Morgan, Samuel Colt, Morgan G. Bulkeley and, most recently, Katharine Hepburn.

In the busy days before Christmas and New Year's, before the snow settles in, Cedar Hill is a pleasant walk that can be long or short, contemplative or not, brisk or slow.

Cedar Hill, established in 1864, is a well-maintained example of the "rural" cemetery movement of the 19th century, in which city cemeteries came to have a strong park-like dimension and were meant not only as a place to bury the dead but as a place of serenity for the living.

The trees here are worth a close look, and Edward Richardson, an authority on Connecticut's notable trees, has prepared a guide to 35 of the cemetery's most noteworthy species.

There is, for example, a red threadleaf Japanese maple. This is a small tree, not much bigger than a big shrub, but it is the largest of its kind known to exist in Connecticut, and almost certainly was planted in the 19th century. It gets its name from the extraordinarily narrow lobes of its leaves - like threads almost. Even now in late fall, it retains its leaves, though they are shriveled and curled inward, almost as if they were some airy, buff-colored fruit.

Two most unusual hemlocks overspread the monument to John Francis Huss, the grounds superintendent at Hartford's Goodwin mansion at the end of the 19th century. It was Huss who propagated this cultivated version of the hemlock, notable for its very short, dark green needles, some of which grow right out of the trunk. You've seen countless hemlocks, even if you don't know them by name, but you've never seen a hemlock like the Huss hemlock.

The Huss hemlock, of course, is an evergreen, so these two specimens will stand out in any season. Indeed, evergreens, including spruces, pines, firs, laurels and rhododendrons, are so abundant at Cedar Hill, there is considerable color even in the middle of winter. In one spot, you'll find massive specimens of blue spruce, white fir and Douglas fir in a row.

The notable trees listed in the cemetery brochure are marked with small identifying plates, a helpful touch.

Cedar Hill has long been popular among serious birders, who use the cemetery particularly during spring and fall migration periods. From April through May, the trees can be dense with colorful warbler species, some of them uncommon species that nest much farther north.

Butterfly enthusiasts know that in the woods southeast of Section 3 (cemetery sections are marked), a half-dozen hackberry trees can be found. The hackberry is an uncommon native tree. An even more uncommon butterfly, the Hackberry emperor, feeds on oozing wounds in hackberry trees and nothing else. So if you want to see the Hackberry emperor or the tawny emperor, another unusual butterfly that feeds on hackberry, Cedar Hill is a good place to start.

You could spend hours just looking at the monuments and gravestones, some of them produced by prominent architects.

A mausoleum for Edwin D. Morgan, a governor of New York in the 19th century, was designed by Stanford White, the acclaimed Gilded Age architect.

Look for the huge granite cross marking the gravesite of James Terry, grandson of Eli Terry of Terryville and clockmaking fame. The base weighs 30 tons, and the cross that sits atop - unattached - is itself 20 tons. The cemetery conducts tours during warmer weather months, and when a group stops beside the Terry cross and the tour leader mentions the cross is not cemented to the base, people tend to back away.

Sam Colt, of Colt Firearms fame, was an outsized personality, and he has a befitting monument, a massive tower of pink Scottish marble.

Among the more touching monuments is that of Griffin A. Stedman Jr., a Civil War veteran, who was killed at the battle of Petersburg, Va., at age 26. As he lay dying, he received word that he had been promoted to general. His monument is topped with a sculpted representation of his cap, sword and belt resting upon a flag that lists the battles in which he fought.